| Venue: | SCOTUS |
| Facts: | Korematsu entered an area from which he was excluded by military order. |
| Posture: | Convicted in federal court. Affirmed on appeal. |
| Issue: | Can the government do that? |
| Holding: | Indeed it can. |
| Rule: | This was within the war power. |
| Reasoning: | War is an aggregation of hardships. We can't reject the judgment of our molitary leaders. War places burdens upon citizens. We need to give our military the power to protect, commensurate with the danger at hand. |
| Dicta: | Frankfurter, concurring: the power to wage war is the power to wage
war successfully.
Murphy, dissenting: the proper test is of whether the government can deprive people of rights like this is whether the circumstances are exigent enough. Here we're just roundly condemning anybody of Japanese descent. Military judgments based on racism aren't entitled to the same deference as ones based on military considerations. And there's economic protectionism for interest groups lirking behind this. Jackson, dissenting: obviously there's a difference between what the military can do in a war and what the government would ordinarily be able to do, and we need to empower the military to win. But to justify this measure under due process is to significantly weaken the force of that term. The courts can only exercise constitutional power, they're not instruments of military policy. If an unscrupulous leader ever gets control over the war power, the country is doomed. |